Discrete Mathematics With Applications (Hardcover)

by Susanna S. Epp (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Susanna Epp's Discrete Mathematics with Applications, Second Edition provides a clear introduction to discrete mathematics. Epp has always been recognized for her lucid, accessible prose that explains complex, abstract concepts with clarity and precision. This book presents not only the major themes of discrete mathematics, but also the reasoning that underlies mathematical thought. The text is suitable for many course structures, including one-semester or full-year classes. Its emphasis on reasoning provides strong preparation for computer science or more advanced mathematics courses.

About the Author
Ph.D. University of Chicago

Product Details

• Hardcover: 828 pages
• Publisher: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company; 2nd edition (September 26, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0534944469
• ISBN-13: 978-0534944469
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #278,222 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear explanation of abstract concepts, January 21, 2001

By	Muthukumar U (Sharjah United Arab Emirates) - See all my reviews

This is a neat, complete text. The author is especially sensitive to the needs of the beginner in discrete maths who needs to get used to abstract concepts. This transition is handled very well. There is enough explanation to make you understand what is going on behind the mathematical symbols and at the same time it is not wordy. Despite this simplicity in the teaching approach, the author is able to take the reader from the elementary to quite advanced levels in each topic. There are interesting applications to the field of computer science and programming.

The exercises are designed to test your understanding and a few challenge problems are thrown in. This type of accessible difficulty in the problems builds your confidence. The solutions are quite elaborate and therefore make the book more useful.

On the whole a good, self contained book written such that you will understand each page and concept if you have a reasonable attention span. The author has made it as easy as possible for you.

Please note I have reviewed the first edition of this book as I found this edition rather expensive.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars too wordy for math majors, August 5, 2000

By	Charles R. Williams (Akron, OH United States) - See all my reviews

I just used this text for a discrete math course. Most of us were computer science majors and many of them struggled with the math and with the text. This is the audience the text is written for and the author tries to explain everything assuming very little about the student's prior knowledge. This math is obviously hard for non-math majors. If they need to learn it, I haven't seen any Discrete Math text that does a better job for this group.

The book is too simple and wordy for math majors, very strong computer science students and future math teachers. A better approach might be a book like D. Smith's A Transition to Advanced Mathematics for logic, sets, counting, mathematical induction, relations, and functions, combined with Chartrand's Introductory Graph Theory.

One could use this book at the high school level for a senior level discrete math course for strong students preparing for computer science as an alternative to taking pre-calculus.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Horrible!, February 19, 2000

By A Customer

I am a second year Computer Science student and I have to agree with the rest of the bad reviews because the biggest problem I had with this book was that unlike other math textbooks which have the answers to most of the odd problems, this book only answered selected exercises in the text. I also remember the horrible memories I had about staying up very late at night trying to solve the problems in this book and what made things worse was that I did not have a good instructor either. I barely passed this course and I bought other math books to try and solve some of the problems in the book, but it didn't work. I hate it when mathematics professors try to be a big shot and show off their work by making it too complex and having little or no examples of how to do the problems in the book. I agree with one of the reviewers by saying that this book should be "For Math majors Only". If you are not required to buy this textbook, DON'T! Save your money and invest it in another one.